There were no blocks or tackles or throws or catches today at Lions practice Tuesday. In fact, there was no practice at all.
Instead, there was listening and talking, pain and understanding, expressing and learning.
In the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisc., the Lions players huddled in the locker room for hours, sharing their own heartfelt experiences of dealing with police and trying to figure out a way to cope with the heavy burden of another police-involved shooting of a Black man.
After their meeting in the locker room, the players gathered outside the practice facility in Allen Park and addressed the media about the shooting, which is the latest in the growing number of unarmed Black people killed in the country this year — most notably George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
“Today when we came in the building, there were a lot of heavy hearts. We’re at a point in time where a lot of tragic events continue to keep happening to Black people, people of color,” Lions safety Duron Harmon said. “On Sunday evening, Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, was tragically shot in his back seven times in front of his girlfriend and in front of his three children.
“So as we came in today, as a team, we looked each other in the eye and realized that football is not important today.”
Lions coach Matt Patricia said that he heard of the Blake shooting and wanted to react to it in the proper way, taking his players’ feelings into account. That put football on the backburner of priorities.
“I didn’t really feel right about going into practice and running some football drill without talking to my team,” Patricia said via teleconference Tuesday afternoon.
Several players said that the idea of a protest evolved organically throughout the day and that it wasn’t planned when players arrived to the facility this morning.
“The thing that really hit home to me today was, we are in our football bubble, but that doesn’t mean social injustices aren’t happening,” offensively lineman Taylor Decker said. “Coach has done a great job since the spring about letting guys express how they think and feel. That was a big learning experience for me, listening to my teammates, the guys I care about, the guys I love, and their experiences, and to try to be able to understand.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates on detroitnews.com
Rod.Beard@detroitnews.com
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